Wisconsin's Lake Delton gets a very expensive dye job

Photo courtesy of Kay Mackesey.

Ahhh, natural beauty. Lake Delton sparkles with 500 gallons of "AquaBlue."

Lake Delton, one of Wisconsin's best-known lakes, got a serious dye job a couple weeks ago when the town of the same name spent $29,108 in taxpayer dollars to change the lake's color from murky green to sparkling blue, according to the State Journal.

Lake Delton has famously been the site of the Tommy Bartlett water-ski show for 60 years.

A company called Aquatic Engineering of La Crosse used 500 gallons of dye to "inject" the 267-acre lake with the tint, called "AquaBlue."

"The village requested we color the lake a pleasing blue, so that it replaces a scummy green," Josh Britton of Aquatic Engineering told the State Journal. He added that the dye is not harmful.

According to Britton, the lake will stay blue anywhere from 13 to 30 days.

Was it worth the approximately $30,000? Not everyone thinks so.

The River Alliance of Wisconsin criticized the decision on its blog The River Rat, titling the post "Delton's Dubious Dye Dump" and referring to the dye as "damned expensive lipstick on the proverbial pig."